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One Local Summer 2012 – Week 22

Posted on 24 October 2012
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Another week down, this one cooked by the husband.  Husband had an outing with a friend to go ‘hunting’ for quail and pheasant.  They managed to get a few, and this is part of the result of that.  The hunt was local-ish so we’re calling it good for the Local Summer.  The dish is basically Waterzooi (a Belgian chicken stew) made local.  Waterzooi typically has cream added to it, but goat’s milk was easier to find, so we went with that.  The vegetables can be different depending on who you ask, so we’re pretty good there, using mushrooms, leeks, carrots, celeriac, onions, potatoes, and sage.  Everything was simmered together in a big pot with chicken stock we saved from the last time we did wings (using locally sourced chicken wings), so it’s very very local there.  The only thing that’s not are the spices.

Quail Waterzooi:
Quail – hunted and shot locally
Mushrooms – Oley Valley Mushrooms
Leeks – North Star Orchards
Carrots – North Star Orchards
Celeriac – Jack’s Farm
Onions – Jack’s Farm
Potatoes – Jack’s Farm
Goat’s Milk – Shellbark Hollow Farm
Sage – Back deck planters
Non Local – spices, salt, pepper

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One Local Summer 2012 – Week 19

Posted on 23 September 2012
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Another week all on me.  We finally got a REALLY ripe watermelon from the garden.  So ripe, it practically burst open the second I started to cut. The watermelon naturally has this glowy orange-yellow inside, so no, your monitor isn’t off.  The garden is pretty small, so I usually only get one watermelon, but that’s enough for me.  A local farm was offering a new product, veal kielbasa, so I jumped on it and got the last package.  It was delicious!  Spiced just right.  I decided to pair it with some zucchini (we’re STILL getting zucchini from the garden) cooked with onions and shitake mushrooms.  The neighbors and I have a little garden exchange program going on, so I picked up a bunch of peppers from them which I sliced, grilled, and stuffed with cheese from the same farm that had the kielbasa.  The beer is a maple porter, homebrewed with maple syrup from the state, even if the malt and grains aren’t locally sourced, I’ll call it part local.

Kielbasa with vegetables and watermelon:
Kielbasa – Birchrun Hills Farm
Cheese – Birchrun Hills Farm
Peppers – Neighbor’s Garden
Watermelon – Our Garden
Mushrooms – Oley Valley Mushrooms
Onion – Jack’s Farm
Non local – olive oil, salt, pepper

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One Local Summer 2012 – Week 9

Posted on 12 July 2012
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This one is getting posted late, but I’ve been busy, honest!  This one was on my own since husband is out to sea for a month.  We’ve got veal cubes with turnips, fennel, and mushrooms on a skewer, and potatoes on the side, all cooked up on the grill!  The skewers are pretty neat – they’re Fire Wires, and are basically stainless steel cables with a tip.  Put the food on, marinate in a bag or bowl, then throw on the grill.  Once the tip has been heated for about 10 minutes to burn off any bacteria, you move it off the grill so that you can pick up the whole wire using the tip that has cooled.  Pretty easy!  I filled up four Fire Wires, so I have plenty of leftovers.

Veal Kabobs:
Turnips – Jack’s Farm
Mushrooms – Oley Valley Mushrooms
Potatoes – Brogue Hydroponics
Veal – Birchrun Hills Farm
Fennel – Jack’s Farm
Non Local – Salt, Pepper, Olive Oil

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One Local Summer 2012 – Week 8

Posted on 29 June 2012
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Another meal by the husband, and the last one for a few weeks, unfortunately, as he’s back out to sea.  This one is pretty basic, but I just cannot get enough of those grilled vegetables.  We have a pork tenderloin and then carrots, potatoes, snap peas, and zucchini all tossed into the grill.  The vegetables were cooked toether in the grill wok with some salt, pepper, and olive oil, and the tenderloin was covered in a seasoning blend that isn’t local (Maple Jalapeno seasoning from Cabela’s), but is OH SO VERY GOOD.  Hopefully our little garden will be producing some vegetables soon.  The zucchini plants both have wee little baby zucchini on them, there’s a teeny watermelon, and loads of marble-sized tomatoes.

Pork and Vegetables:
Pork Tenderloin – Countrytime Farm
Zucchini – Jack’s Farm
Potatoes – Jack’s Farm
Snap Peas – Charlestown Farm
Carrots – Charlestown Farm
Mushrooms – Oley Valley Mushrooms
Non Local – Olive oil, Salt, Pepper, Maple Jalapeno Seasoning

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One Local Summer 2012 – Week 5

Posted on 5 June 2012
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The husband is home again and took over full responsibility for this meal.  He went to the farmer’s market and picked everything out and even cooked it too!  The chicken is stuffed with spring onions, mushrooms, and blue cheese, served with grilled vegetables.  Again, all cooked out on the grill, and served with a local wine, Paradocx’s barn red.

Stuffed Chicken:
Chicken – Mt View Organics
Spring Onion – Jack’s Farm
Mushrooms – Oley Valey Mushrooms
Blue Cheese – Birchrun Hills Farm
Zucchini – Jack’s Farm
Carrots – Jack’s Farm
Wine – Paradocx, Barn Red
Non Local – Salt, pepper, olive oil

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One Local Summer 2012 – Week 4

Posted on 30 May 2012
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No, it’s not technically a salad. Right?  They’re mushroom swiss turkey thigh burgers on a bed of lettuce with asparagus and mushrooms.  Buns are not really local (locally made, but not from local ingredients), so, burgers without the buns!  As far as the burger patties, I know that the mushrooms are from the same local vendor that I got my skewered mushrooms from, but I’m not sure about the swiss, and forgot to ask.  Oh well.  The asparagust was coated in olive oil and a little salt on the grill.  The burgers were grilled, and of course the mushrooms too.  I love being able to cook outside and not heat up the inside of the house!

Bunless Turkey Burgers:
Turkey Burgers – Mt View Organics
Lettuce – Charlestown Farm
Asparagus – Hoagland Farm
Mushrooms – Oley Valley Mushrooms
Non Local – Salad Dressing, olive oil, salt

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One Local Summer 2012 – Week 2

Posted on 17 May 2012
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When I talked about doing things simple this year? I really meant it.  Hooray for salads!  It’s still early in our growing season, so a lot of what’s available is leafy and green.  Of course by the time summer comes, lettuce and leafy greens become scarce, so I might as well enjoy it while I can!  There are three types of greens in that salad – romaine, mesclun mix, and some turnip greens which I found to be particularly delicious.  The other ingredients are crimini mushrooms because I’m a firm believer that there should be fungus in every meal, sliced turnips because the turnips are more than just greens, and some goat cheese because, well, CHEESE.  Sadly, the dressing isn’t local, but you’ll forgive me for that if I tell you that I grew the mesclun all by myself, right?  I am very much open to salad dressing recipes, but they’d have to not contain oil in order to be local.. possibly something yogurt based?  I can get goat’s milk yogurt locally, and we have a variety of herbs that I either grow myself (dill, sage, cilantro, basil) or can obtain at the market.  I’m also looking for a good use for the saffron I harvested in the fall from my crocuses.  How does saffron polenta sound?

Spring Salad:
Romaine – Charlestown Farm
Turnips & Greens – Jack’s Farm
Mushrooms – Oley Valley Mushrooms
Mesclun – My Garden
Goat Cheese – Shellbark Hollow
Non local – Dressing

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One Local Summer 2012 – Week 1

Posted on 11 May 2012
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Seeing as our local farmer’s market kicked off its first regular market of the season, I figured I’d start One Local Summer back up again.  I seriously contemplated whether or not to do this again.  This year would be my fourth year of a summer’s worth of making one meal a week using only local ingredients.  To be honest, I’m lacking motivation this year, and have gotten pretty busy with a bunch of other things.  But, reason won out, and said hey, this is good for your health, it doesn’t have to be complicated, so cook something local once a week, no big deal.  This year may be a little less inspired than other years, but I’m still doing this.  ON TO THE FOOD!

This is pretty basic.  It’s still early in the vegetable growing season, so my veggie options are limited.  Our opening farmer’s market with the Phoenixville Farmer’s Market was a honey bee festival, so I included that here.  Going around the plate clockwise, we have chicken marinated in honey and olive oil, then crispy beet greens from the grill, crimini mushrooms, and wilted beet greens with wee little baby beets on the end.  When they ‘thin the herd’ so to speak, to prevent overcrowding with the beets, the greens and baby beets are perfect for eating.  The whole thing is edible – the greens are sort of spinachy and the teeny beets on the end grill up in short order and are perfectly tender.  The wilted beet greens were done up in foil with a little olive oil and salt and set on the grill.  EVERYTHING on that plate was cooked on the grill!  Easy peasy.  Here’s the rundown on ingredients.

Chicken and Beet Greens with mushrooms:
Chicken – Mt View Organics
Honey – Baues’ Busy Bees
Beets and Beet Greens – Charlestown Farm
Mushrooms – Oley Valley Mushrooms
Non Local – Salt, Olive Oil, homebrew beer (Saison)

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One Local Summer 2011 – Week 22

Posted on 3 November 2011
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This is one of my favorite meals that the husband makes. We weren’t sure if it could be done locally, but once we sat down and figured it out, it was SUPER easy to find (almost) all the ingredients. This is a Steak and Ale pie, a traditional British meal that’s a great way to warm up on a chilly day. It’s basically a chicken pot pie, but with beef and beer and mushrooms instead of the chicken and vegetables. The beer we used was a homebrew made with a pound of Pennsylvania Maple Syrup from Miller’s maple, so even though the grain used in the beer is not local, it’s at least more local than other beers we could’ve used. The only other exception is the pepper and a little bit of oil. The leftovers are already gone, that’s just how good it is.  We’re not sure at this point where the original recipe came from since ours has been heavily modified (bison instead of beef, etc), but this recipe is pretty close.  We made the ‘beef’ broth this time using a stew bone from the bison vendor with a few vegetables thrown in the pot for flavor – worked out PERFECTLY and was super delicious, not to mention very low in sodium.

Steak and Ale Pie
Bison Sirloin – Backyard Bison
Crimini Mushrooms – Oley Valley Mushrooms
Eggs – Mountain View Organics
Flour – Mill at Anselma
Onion – Hoagland Farms
Garlic – Jack’s Farm
Sage – Jack’s Farm
Milk – Camphill Village – Kimberton Hills Dairy
Smoked Sea Salt – Pureblend Teas
Non Local – Pepper, Olive Oil, Maple Porter Beer

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One Local Summer 2011 – Week 7

Posted on 22 June 2011
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Okay, I know I say this every week, but, I REALLY made a good one here.  It’s no secret that I love garlic scapes, the spirally green vegetation that grows above the garlic bulb.  In order to get a proper garlic harvest, the green shoots need to be cut back to allow the garlic bulb to grow and harden.  Those shoots, or scapes, are gently garlicky, and can be cooked up much like scallions.  After a little googling last week to find other uses for garlic scapes, I came to a brilliant conclusion.  Garlic scapes could be steamed and blenderized and then used to make pasta (why no, I haven’t been on a pasta kick either), and then topped with a garlic scape pesto.  That’s exactly what I did.  I steamed the garlic scapes for about 10 minutes.  Then, using a stick blender, added in a little of the water from the steam pot, and blended until I got a thick slurry of garlic scapes.  Made and rolled the pasta using about 1/4th cup of the garlic scape slurry instead of water and allowed that to rest while I cooked up zucchini, diced scapes (yes, ALL THE SCAPES!), spring onions, and some crimini mushrooms along with pork sausage.  The remaining garlic scape slurry was given a boost of smoked sea salt and a little olive oil to make the pesto sauce.  Boiled the pasta, threw some sauce on top, added the sausage and vegetables to the plate, and there was dinner!  A little chunk of cheese on the side of the plate finished off dinner – which, I’ve just finished off dinner as I’ve been sitting here typing this up for you, it was THAT GOOD.

Garlic Scape Pasta with Sausage and Vegetables:
Garlic Scapes – Jack’s Farm & North Star Orchards
Crimini Mushrooms – Oley Valley Mushrooms
Whole Wheat Pastry Flour – Mill at Anselma
Zucchini – North Star Orchards
Spring Onions – Jack’s Farm
Pork Sausage – Countrytime Farm
Smoked Sea Salt – Pureblend Teas
Fat Cat Cheese – Birchrun Hills
Non Local – Olive Oil

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